Concrete batching plant contacts Andrews Boilers

The process of concrete batching is reliant upon several factors to ensure the quality and integrity of the final product. While the correct proportion of materials (cement, aggregates and water, to name three) must be accurately measured, arguably just as important is maintaining an optimum temperature to guarantee the production of sustainable, robust concrete.

We were recently contacted by a batching plant in Bristol, with a long-term equipment hire required to maintain the desired conditions throughout both summer and winter. The nature of the application meant our regional engineer would need to specify a solution capable of dealing with significant changes to the ambient temperature.

The client advised that water for the concrete mixture would need to be exactly 5°C during the summer and 16°C during winter. It was decided that a 250kW packaged boiler and a 250kW fluid chiller would be deployed on site, with both units connected to the customer’s plate heat exchanger. This configuration would allow either the boiler or chiller to be swapped out whenever necessary, depending on the ambient temperature.

A Sykes submersible pump was also used to help accelerate the flow of water around the heat exchanger, utilising a hose which runs directly back to the pump’s tank. Our engineer was able to devise a practical solution that could be altered instantly whenever the need arose. As a result, this long-term chiller, boiler and pump hire combination allowed the batching plant to continue with their concrete production at the desired pace and achieve output targets without further issue.

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